fon just risen from her flumber, seized the truths prefented to her view with all the eagerness which novelty could excite. Proud of the treasures she had acquired, and yet ignorant how to manage them to advantage; difgufted with furrounding bigotry and superstition, impatient of controul, and dazzled with the light, though glimmering, which now broke through the darkness of the middle ages, fhe too feldom diftinguished Religion from the grofs corruptions with which it had been loaded, and, ufurping the feat of judgment, fhe often decided upon fubjects not amenable to her tribunal, and blindly opposed the authority of a Power which it was both her duty and her interest to obey.—Mahometanism and Popery appear then to have been the parents of Infidelity-an offspring born to be their chastisement. Barruel has ingeniously

e

• Amongst the caufes by which Popery had an obvious tendency to produce Infidelity, must be reckoned their treatment of the Holy Scriptures. "The Popes," fays Mofheim, "permitted their champions to indulge themselves openly in reflections injurious to the dignity of the facred writings, and, by an excefs of blafphemy almost incredible (if the paffions of men did not render them capable of the greatest enormities), to declare publicly, that the edicts of the Pontiffs, and the

record.

niously traced the doctrines of liberty and equality" as taught by modern Infidels, to the founder of the Manichean herefy in the third centuryf. And we may

admit

σε

records of oral tradition, were fuperior in point of authority, to the exprefs language of the Holy Scriptures." It is well known that the Romanifts decried the facred original as much as poffible, and that the Vulgate tranflation, because it abounded in errors, and might be more easily perverted to their purpose, was declared by a folemn decree of the council of Trent, an authentic, i. e. a faithful, accurate, and perfect tranflation." In the true fpirit of this decree, Morini was employed in a laborious work (Biblicarum, feu mavis Anti-Biblicarum Exercitationum, fays Mill) the object of which was to destroy the credit of the original, and to fupport that of the Vulgate, as the only complete and unerring rule of faith. See Mofheim's Eccl. Hift. vol. iv. p. 213. and Mill's Prolegom. 1318, 1326.

The pious reader will not fail to observe a signal inftance of Divine retribution, when the monster Infidelity, thus produced by Papal corruption, has become the prime inftrument of the downfall of its parent.

f Curbicus, a Perfian flave, who changed his name to Manes, called himfelf an Apoftle of Jefus Christ, taught the antient opinion of the Magi concerning two principles, or Gods, the one good, the other evil; denied the refurrection of the body, &c. and was flayed alive for his impostures by order of the Perfian King.

I am aware that it was an artifice of the Papal Church to extend the deservedly unpopular name of Manicheans to many fects, which had nothing in com

mon

admit this statement to be juft, though we deny fome of the opinions which he has connected with it. The hidden meaning of these words may have lain long concealed; it may have been occafionally directed to the purposes of vice and rebellion by particular focieties; and those focieties may voluntarily, or involuntarily, have been claffed with beretics, whofe only crime was disobedience to the Church of Rome. But whether the doctrines now inculcated by these mystic terms arose in the third century with the Manichcans, or were the offspring of the eighteenth, it is certain

mon with the Manicheans, but their oppofition to the ruling powers of the Church of Rome. What the Abbé Barruel fays upon the subject must therefore be received with hesitation: fince, though I admit the merit of his labours, and the truth of his facts, I am not difposed to subscribe to all his opinions, and to confound, as he too often has done, the cause of Christianity with that of Popery. We may however trace the origin of Free-Masonry to the Dionyfiacs of Afia Minor, and may yet fuppofe these doctrines to have been engrafted upon their fymbols in particular focieties, while others remained perfectly ignorant of any such mystical sense having been annexed to them. And this has indeed been the cafe with the generality of the English Lodges who knew nothing of the mysteries of their brethren on

the continent.

they

they never became active powers till they appeared as "the horns of the fecond beaft," or Infidelity, and were employed by him to delude mankind fo far as "to make the image" which is now their fcourge. "The difciples of Manes aimed at the abolition of all laws, and of Chriftianity, by means of fuperftition and fanaticifm. The fpirit of the mysteries, and the allegory adopted by the, modern fophifters, remain the fame. It is always Kings and Christianity that are to be deftroyed, empires and the altar to be overturned, in order to re-establish the liberty and equality of human nature 8, " without laws or focial order. But these have indeed far exceeded their predeceffors both in the object of their views, and the means of accomplishing it. It is by a war of extermination to the enemies of their fyfiem, that they mean to establish Atheism.

The growth of Infidelity in thofe countries bleffed with the light of the Reformation, appears much more extraordinary than its birth in the period of the Papal power. And in order to account for this,

Barruel, vol. ii. p. 417.

we

we must obferve, that Infidelity at first masqued itself with many of the principles which gave birth to, or at least brought forward, the Reformation itself. It profeffed attachment to moral virtue, and hatred of fuperftition--zeal for truth, and difregard of authority-an enlarged charity, and a reliance upon reafon. reafon. Such fcepticism appeared an object of pity rather than of cenfure. And anxious to prove, that, in univerfal benevolence and candor, Chriftians at leaft equalled thefe philofophers, many Proteftant writers addreffed them in a ftyle of compliment upon their difcernment and liberality--quitted the ftrong holds of Scripture doctrine-advanced to meet them on their own ground, and argued upon what they called the principles of natural religion folely. They granted that " faith depends not on the will, but on the understanding"--that "when the evidence for the truth of any propofition is full and clear, it conftrains affent, but that no blame is imputable for rejecting a propofition for which the mind cannot fee evidence"--and that "we are not called upon to believe what we cannot comprehend." Of fuch dangerous conceffions the infidious enemy took advantage;

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